Monday, October 19, 2009

No Impact Man

I have just come across a must see documentary for everyone in our class and in the country!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The name is NO IMPACT MAN

No impact man movie trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fITT6rVPds




The documentary is about Colin Beavan and his family (wife Michelle and two year old daughter) and their attempt to live ONE year without making NO net environmental impact, The documentary highlights the all the steps taken by Colin and his family in their systematic shedding of all the modern comforts of urban family life: No transportation, no TV, no trash, no restaurants or take-out, no newspapers or magazines, no toilet paper, no plastic diapers, no store-bought cleaning products or cosmetics, and no electricity. Beavan wants to prove to the world that one person can in fact make a difference and I believe through this film he accomplishes just that.


I believe the point of the documentary is not to say that everyone must give up all of the comforts of a modern lifestyle and live like they did in the documentary, but to show that if it's possible for one family of 3 to reduce their environmental impact to 0 for one whole year then we can all reduce our impact substantially with less effort than we think.

Most of the movie critics however did not agree and I feel miss the point of the movie. The New York time, for example mocked Beavan and his family’s efforts by naming their article about the film The Year Without Toilet Paper. Many others also said that Beavan is just another self-promoting wannabe trying to make himself an instant celebrity the same way Morgan Spurlock did with his documentary “Supersize Me." There are even some who criticized the very idea of what he is trying to do, the idea of having NO Impact on the environment, and seeing it as stupid and pointless.


As seen through this comments like this one


“By the way, of course the family's efforts were more than undone by all the energy expended to make this film, not to mention all the people who further defiled the ozone by going to see it in theaters. At least I didn't notice any bikes in the parking lot when I saw it.. Oh, and they'll be printing a book soon, too, as well.

Goodbye trees...”

As you can see I believe these critics are not only missing the point but are completely undermining the opportunity to get people in this country to think about their energy use, something that I feel is desperately needed this country and throughout the world. I believe that most of these critics are not fully aware of the current energy crisis we are facing in this country and how dependent we are on fossil fuels (such as coal, oil and natural gas) and how our overuse of these fuels are not only contributing to globe climate change but having a severely detrimental effect on our environment. Therefore without a clear and vivid understanding of this it is hard for these critics to truly appreciate the message Beavan is trying to get across in the film, a message that I believe is well worth all paper used to print the book and even all the energy used to create, and distribute the film. If only half the people who go to see the movie or read the book go out and take part in Beavan’s project to reduce their impact on the environment, even by a small amount, then Beavan through the actions of thousands (if not millions) of other people will be able to save ten, a thousand, or maybe a million times more energy than he saved in that one year and thus well making up for all the energy or paper used to get the message across.


Do not just take my word for it, go out and see the documentary for yourselves…..


In addition to the film, Beavan has written a book about the experiment which goes into a lot more detail about the project, information about the environment and resources on how to get involved.

No Impact man book



Beavan has also started the No Impact Project to empower people to live their own no-impact lifestyle and has created a 7-day action plan to show how to do it.

I CHALLENGE EVERYONE WHO READS THIS TO GO ON THE SITE FOLLOW THE GUIDE AND TRY TO LIVE JUST 7 DAYS WITHOUT HAVING ANY IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT.

No impact man website http://noimpactman.typepad.com/

No impact man project http://noimpactproject.org/


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